711.94/21624/14
Memorandum of a Conversation
At Mr. Wikawa’s invitation, which Mr. Ballantine accepted after having consulted Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Hornbeck,41 Mr. Ballantine lunched with Colonel Iwakuro and Mr. Wikawa at their apartment.
Colonel Iwakuro endeavored to draw Mr. Ballantine out by seemingly casual questions on the attitude of the Department to the Japanese [Page 469] proposal as it now stood, such as, how are things going and has there been any opposition in the Department to an agreement such as is proposed. Mr. Ballantine replied that the Secretary is the State Department and speaks for this Government in matters of foreign policy and that in this way our Government is integrated differently from Japan’s. Mr. Ballantine said that he was not in position to add anything beyond what the Secretary said on June 6 to the Colonel and to the Ambassador; that he would be glad to go over any points which were not clear in what the Secretary had said; that he desired at all times to be helpful and would be glad to communicate to the Secretary anything they might wish to say but could not undertake to express an attitude on any points which they might bring up.
Colonel Iwakuro said that they had understood very well what the Secretary had said on June 6 and the contents of the oral statement left with them. He then proceeded to say that they had given much thought to our proposed sentence in the first paragraph of Section II, reading, “Obviously, the provisions of the Pact do not apply to involvement through acts of self-defense.” He said that in suggesting that this sentence be deleted the Japanese did not wish to imply that they did not recognize our right of self-defense; that that right is so universally recognized that its inclusion in the proposed agreement seemed superfluous; and that being superfluous its inclusion would merely raise difficult questions for Japan at home. Moreover, he felt personally that the relations of Japan and the United States to the European war were not an important factor in the relations of the two countries to each other and that the tenor of any interpretation that Japan might have occasion to make in regard to its obligations under the Tripartite Pact as these obligations should relate to Japan’s relations with the United States would be influenced by the fact of Japan’s having concluded the proposed agreement with the United States. He repeated what he had said on June 4 that Japan could not undertake to provide in any agreement now for all possible situations that might arise in which the United States might consider its self-defense involved. He said that they took no exception in any way to what the Secretary had said in regard to this Government’s attitude on the question.
Colonel Iwakuro stated that they now proposed to accept our redraft of the section in regard to peace in the Pacific area. With regard to mutual pledges that the activities of the two countries in the Pacific area should be conducted by peaceful means, he proposed to include something on this in the preamble rather than in Section V, where such phraseology was included in our draft. He did not indicate definitely how they proposed to deal with our suggestion for [Page 470] inclusion in Section V of mutual pledges of respect for the principle of non-discrimination in international commercial intercourse in the Pacific area, but Mr. Ballantine gathered that the Japanese would agree to retaining the pledges. In Section III of the Japanese Annex, in regard to China, he proposed to put back under caption three of Japan’s peace terms to China the phraseology originally proposed in the Japanese oral explanation of May 12, namely, “Economic cooperation—by which Japan does not intend to exercise economic monopoly in China nor to demand of China a limitation in the interest[s] of Third Powers”. He said that the Japanese desired to retain the language used by Prince Konoe in his statement of the three principles for a settlement of the conflict with China.
Colonel Iwakuro explained more clearly the reference which the Ambassador and he had made on June 6 to an initiative by the President vis-à-vis China. What they meant was that it should be made to appear that, as the United States had now reached an agreement with Japan providing for peaceful relations between them in the Pacific, it only remained to dispose of the conflict between China and Japan to clear up the situation in the Far East and that accordingly the President on his own initiative desired to propose to China that China seek a peaceful settlement with Japan. Colonel Iwakuro did not indicate whether the Japanese had a new formula in mind on this point.
With regard to the question of the retention of Japanese troops in China for the proposed cooperative action with China in resisting communistic activities, Japan could not agree to limit the retention of troops in China for this purpose for one or two years, but he explained that, as the Japanese did not wish to keep troops in China longer than necessary, the troops would be withdrawn as soon as the cause for keeping them there should cease to exist.
The Colonel concluded by saying that he was not holding anything back but would be glad to speak his mind freely to us in regard to any points we might wish to raise.
Mr. Wikawa indicated that the Japanese were preparing new revised drafts which they would give to us. Mr. Ballantine thanked the Colonel and Mr. Wikawa for their frank and detailed comments and said he would report fully to the Secretary.
The atmosphere of the interview was entirely cordial.
- Dr. Stanley K. Hornbeck, Adviser on Political Relations, Department of State.↩